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Although I've had several friends write guest posts for this blog, I've only written one guest post for another blog. I had won a contest over at Nothing Important and had this entry posted on March 6, 2006. Since it's not available there anymore, and because I don't have anything to say today, here it is for your enjoyment.

There's something I don't quite get: cable channels.

I'm pretty young (16), so I've grown up watching cable TV. It's always seemed that there was a channel for everything: the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, Arts & Entertainment (A&E), Animal Planet, the Learning Channel (TLC), Food Network, Game Show Network (GSN), the Travel Channel, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), ad nauseam. (These channels and many more are staples of satellite TV as well.)

There's only one way I can explain the multiplicity of very specific channels. It must have had its roots in the days before cable, when everyone watched the big three networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) and had to put up with -- ugh -- variety in programming. Then new technology came along. "Honey, guess what? We're getting the Underwater Basket Weaving Channel!"

Fast forward to the present. Apparently the cable networks' business models are failing, or maybe they just want to spice things up. Why else would they seem to be exchanging programs and losing their narrow focus? The other day I was watching an episode about food on the History Channel's show "Modern Marvels," in which they usually look at technology and stuff. What the heck, everybody?

Take Game Show Network as another example. I think they finally realized that not everyone wants to watch game shows, so they shortened their name to GSN and adopted the tagline, "The network for games." Now anything vaguely game-related can find its way into the programming block. They have a new show called "Anything to Win," which actually is about (in)famous people who will do anything to get ahead. Games? Not in the case of Johnnie Cochran and the other folks featured.

By the way, what's the Discovery Channel supposed to be about, anyway? Discovering things? I always thought it was about science. I guess not, since they've spun off the Science Channel. Now all they show on the Discovery Channel (and TLC, and HGTV) are shows about remodeling houses. And probably makeover shows; I don't really know.

I expect all of the aforementioned cable networks to merge into the Everything Channel next spring. Till then, here's a fun game to try: Cover up the corner of your screen and try to guess what channel you're watching. I'm sure if you played it years ago, you'd find it harder now than it was then.

I could probably think of a few more examples of cable channels losing their focuses, but I really don't watch that much TV. So, while you're watching a show about the history of the food eaten by traveling hairstylists and interior designers on the Underwater Basket Weaving Channel, I'll be checking my e-mail.

Have a song stuck in your head? Use The Song Tapper to tap out the melody with your spacebar, and see if you get a match with their database of songs.

If you're like me, there are a lot of things you need to do, and you need to be nagged about them before you do them. That's where www.hassleme.co.uk comes in. Just tell the site what to hassle you about, and they'll send you an e-mail reminding you at specified intervals.

I'd like to thank Jeff/Danny for letting me write on his blog. If you enjoyed this post (that is, if it didn't make you jump out a window), you may be interested in reading my own site, www.theworldofstuff.com, where I chatter on and on like this all the time, except it's usually about my own life.

Last week, I played something resembling baseball with some of my friends. We didn't have enough people for a game, so we had a home run derby instead. We had such a good time with that that we decided to play some more baseball yesterday. We were going to play at a park that had baseball fields, but people were using them, so we went to another baseball field instead.

There were only five of us playing, so we took turns hitting. I was relegated to the outfield most of the time, where I had to throw and catch right-handed because nobody had a left-handed baseball glove. Since there were only as many as two of us out there at any given time, we didn't try very hard to catch any fly balls. We had 10 of them, anyway. But I did manage to make a pretty nice catch while I was running to my right and stretching my left arm over to my right side. (A right-handed player throws with his right hand and catches with his left, so this makes sense. Right-handed baseball gloves go on the left hand.)

We were out there for a few hours, after which I was sunburned like whoa. I didn't really notice it at the time, but my farmer's tan has gotten a lot worse, and it hurts. I wonder how people manage not to have farmer's tans. To mitigate this situation, I think I would either have to spend all my time tanning or stop going outside. Guess which one I would prefer. But wikiHow makes it sound so easy.

After that, we went to my house to cool down. Some of us swam in the pool. After that, we visited Kim on the job; she's a hostess at Bonefish Mac's. There was hardly anyone there, which I guess would be expected for a Sunday night, but I don't go to restaurants on Sunday nights very often, so I'm not sure. Apparently, no one else goes either. But the food was good. After that, we tried to decide whose house we should go to, and it turned out that my house was the only option. We rented Waiting... and Hot Fuzz and watched them at my house. It was about 12:45 in the morning when we were done, which was fortunate for me because I could just fall into bed when the others left.

My friend Nick wants us to play baseball again on Thursday. I'm looking forward to it. I was going to include a cheesy baseball-themed metaphor to go here, but I can't think of one. Imagine your favorite here!

Take this brief quiz to find out your News IQ. How much do you know about current events? I scored in the 83rd percentile.

Some people have had their cars for a long time. Matteo Ferrari re-creates old photographs of folks posing with their well-loved cars.

How much do you know about Benjamin Franklin? Here are 9 Things You Didn't Know About Benjamin Franklin.

I feel like writing stream-of-consciousness today. It Is That Kind Of Day.

I did get to see The Dark Knight at midnight on opening day. I had been concerned because I was going with a group of people who had tickets to a different showing than I did. They were at the same time, but at different screens. I couldn't find anyone to trade tickets with, so I resigned myself to seeing the movie without the company of most of them. I was with this guy Tyler, who went to my high school for a semester. I had a class with him. Some of my other friends apparently did too because he has now reappeared in the group of friends.

Anyway, while we were in line, he encountered this girl who he apparently knew well. They ribbed each other mercilessly, and he kept asking me why he was putting up with it. I wondered too; he's not the kind of guy who just takes that sort of thing. It was later made known to me by other people that they had dated and that all sorts of drama had recently unfolded. Maybe that's why, when I was sitting between them before the movie started and they were trying to challenge each other to name the last time the other had lied to them, Tyler insisted that I switch seats with him and allow him to whisper something in her ear.

So, he puts up with her verbal abuse because he still has feelings for her? That would be my guess, but I don't know. I do know that she took a liking to me; she said so. I was pleased by that. But whatever.

Anyway, the movie was really good. This was only the second time I had seen a movie premiere (well, not premiere, but opening) at midnight. The first time was last year when I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The Dark Knight was really epic. But unlike my previous midnight film experience, I was pretty tired by the end of it. I even managed to miss part of a pivotal scene somehow. But I was still impressed by Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. Posthumous Oscar? I would recommend it. Get on that, Academy.

I should be leaving for my second year of college in about a month. I'm looking forward to it in a way. I'm going to have a cool roommate. Plus, I'll be able to get to an ATM and eat at Taco Bell whenever I want. As for the classes, eh. Oh, and also, I may have a chance with Number 6 (this one). I remember her hinting that she might want to hang out in the fall. I hope she remembers that too.

Current Music: Kaiser Chiefs - Employment. My dad caught an interview with them on NPR a few years ago and got the album. I like it too. Before this, I was listening to "A Whiter Shade of Pale," which seems to be my stream-of-consciousness-writing-enducer.

Well, it looks like it's time to return to being bored. Here are some links.

Have movies been getting longer recently? I can't remember the last time I went to see a movie that was just the standard 90 minutes in length. A survey of IMDb's top movies by decade suggests that movies have been getting longer over the course of decades, but I'd be interesting in analyzing all major feature films from the past, say, 20 years for a more thorough analysis.

The BBC reports that the oldest recording of computer-generated music has been discovered. It dates back to 1951. Read and listen.

Dumpster diving sounds like a good idea to save some money. Too bad there's such a stigma associated with it. We should just get people to throw away less stuff.

Yesterday my friend Nick asked if I wanted to join him and some of our other friends for lunch. I went along, knowing full well how plans can grow and change. After lunch, we played airsoft at a park in my neighborhood. Then we went to Mark's local park, where there was enough room to play baseball. Actually, since we didn't have enough people for that, we had a home run derby. I think it was my first time playing baseball of any kind. I swung at every pitch, so I didn't last very long. I didn't hit any either. After taking a break at Mark's house, we had played football and then had pizza. Then we played poker. (Texas hold 'em, of course. That variant is so popular that it's annoying. What happened to old five card draw?) So yeah, it was a pretty busy day yesterday. What started as lunch outing became a fun day out.

Tonight's plans: going to see The Dark Knight at midnight. Of course, advance tickets will be necessary. But I just found out: everybody has them except me, and their tickets are for a screen that's now sold out! Awesome! I just got a ticket for the other showing, which I hope to exchange with another moviegoer who's willing to help me out. Surely there'll be measures in place to prevent theater-hopping.

I'm a college student, and the purpose of college is to prepare one for a job. Therefore, I'm being prepared for a job. I've decided that working on software would be pretty cool, so that's what I'm studying. Whenever I mention this, the Bill Gates comparisons fly. I don't want to be the next Bill Gates. I believe in free software, which gives users essential freedoms, while Microsoft believes that they should have total control over the users of their software. Microsoft and most other software companies write non-free software. I find this practice to be unethical. So I need to know: where can I get a job developing free software? I know they exist. The Free Software Foundation even lists a few. But are they more widespread than that (perhaps under the name "open source")? Are there other free software jobs that I'm not thinking of? I don't want to be a sysadmin.

Here are 10 bizarre species names. They're pretty bizarre.

Another list: the Top Tourist Spots Americans Can't Visit. I haven't visited any of them because I can't.

This seems pretty simple, and it would make an awesome project. How to Build Hover Shoes. Caveat: there's soldering involved.

For the past five years, this blog has served as my personal journal, among other things. But I've been writing in journal-like settings for longer than that. Probably starting around first or second grade, I would have to write about a certain topic each day in a "journal." The golden age of the journal seemed to be around third grade, which is when I would have to write about things like "How I'd get my cat down from a 10 ft. tree" (February 19, 1998), "My Amazing Machine" (March 30, 1998), and "I Like Being a Boy Because":

I was pretty bent on preserving those editions of "Jordon's Journal," judging by the handwritten alphabetical index of titles I added to the end of each volume. But over the years, my elementary and junior high teachers required less and less journaling. I must have found the practice interesting enough that I decided to keep a real journal for myself.

The book itself is a small notebook that, as I recall, had come pre-packaged with a larger one that I used for school. I had previously used this small notebook as a stick-figure flipbook, but I covered the front cover with paper, leaving a window for the words "The Stick Flipbook," so it would read:

In the first entry, written on the evening of Wednesday, February 24, 1999, I briefly described a few things that had happened that day, including my first encounter with the 50 State Quarters series. I wrote that I had argued with my sister and my friend Sean, and that my friend Reid was "his usual." Such is the exciting life of a nine-year-old. Other entries were equally banal. "Dear Journal," began an entry written three days later,

I wrote about everything interesting that happened, including field trips. ("Dear Journal, I went to the Seaquarium yesterday and found that Flipper is still alive.") Soon, I was writing mainly about interesting things and ignoring the boring days. I would bring my journal on every family trip and chronicle it in detail. The most significant of these was a two-week car trip to Pittsburgh that July, which remains the longest vacation I've ever been on in terms of time as well as distance traveled... probably.

For the duration of the trip, I had Pennsylvania-mania (a term that, while cheesy, cannot be found in the journal). I would write a Pennsylvania-themed trivia question at the bottom of each odd-numbered page and the answer on each even page. I would keep track of our mileage between stops and some of the places at which we ate each day, as well as all the things we did and what time we entered each new state. A typical entry:

The answer is the Pennsylvania Turnpike. At the end of the trip, I had gathered these fun facts:

• We drove 3,353 miles.
• I estimated that we used 134 gallons of gas. I wonder where I came up with the figure of 25 MPG. I probably asked my dad.
• We saw 72 deer. That's kind of a big deal since we don't have them in South Florida.
• We used 10 rolls of film. I estimated this to be 240 pictures.
• We drove through the states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland.

In 2000, I wrote about a cruise to Cozumel in March-April and a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in October. I also wrote about starting junior high school, mentioning my 22-year-old homeroom teacher, who was "SO HOT!!!" (I'm not going to lie. She was an attractive woman. She probably still is. And dang if I'm not almost as old now as she was then.) I also wrote about the antics of my science teacher, Mr. Tuttle:

There were more excursions to write about in 2001. I covered a trip up the east coast of Florida in April and a wedding in Charleston, South Carolina, in June. I recorded the last entry in the journal on pages 72-74 on Saturday, August 4, 2001. I described my experience at summer camp up to that point and my attempt to start a band with my friends:

Days later, almost on a whim, I would get my first guitar. It was a pivotal moment that helped shape the person I am today. And only 20 months later, I started The World of Stuff and took up journaling again, this time for the world.

And today, I am a Macho Nacho.

I'm 19 years old today. This is my last year as a nominal teenager. Next year, I'll be "in my twenties." That's frightening. But for now, I am still someone with "teen" in his age.

You know how, whenever it's your birthday, you remark that you don't look or feel any older? I sometimes do. But yesterday, I looked in the mirror and saw that I did look a year older. It occurred to me that Brendan Leonard and his friends were 19 when they produced and starred in The Brendan Leonard Show, which I watched avidly when I was 13 and 14. Now I look almost as old as they did then.

I had dinner with some friends last night. I chose Smokey Bones, which is a barbecue place, but a nice one. I don't even like ribs or anything, but they have good burgers and steaks and things of that nature. Unlike last year, more people were able to come than I expected, so it was nice to see everybody. After that, I stopped over at Gerri's luau-themed party for a little while, but then I decided to go home.

My birthday has been pretty much like a typical Sunday except that my grandparents are here. After brunch, we went to a bookstore, which was convenient for me because I got a Barnes and Noble gift card for my birthday. I bought a book about the history of Fermat's Last Theorem. It should be interesting, but I wish I could understand the proof.

Plans for tonight: dinner at home with the fam. They really are the best gift of all. That and money.

Similar to the Doomsday Clock maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the ACLU has its own Surveillance Society Clock going. Both are currently at five minutes to midnight.

What would you do if you had 1,500 Xbox hard drives? The correct answer is to stack them and play hard drive dominoes. It's absolutely mesmerizing. I bet they'd all be broken after that, though. Those things are fragile.

You know those t-shirts that say "I'm big in Japan"? Mark Rowswell of Toronto is big in China. Millions of people there know and love him because he can speak Chinese more skillfully than many of them. Yet at home, he's just an ordinary guy.

My birthday is on Sunday. I'll be 19. I don't really want to talk about being 19 right now. Since this is probably the last post I'll write while I'm 18, I thought I'd talk about what it's like to be 18.

In a way, it owns. You can do lots of cool stuff when you're 18. Here's one of the less appreciated ones. Right around my birthday last year, I switched banks and got a checking account. I have a check card. It's a debit card that you can use wherever credit cards are accepted. What's that? You take Visa? Here you go! No APR or bills or anything like that. Yesterday, I used "online banking" to transfer money from my savings to my checking account. Then I paid for my web hosting online with my debit card. Convenient!

Maybe you can have a checking account at any age, but I couldn't have one until I was 18. I couldn't even touch my savings until then. I think.

Voting is another thing I can do now that I've turned 18. In January, I voted for the first time. That was kind of cool. I've been following the presidential election pretty closely with sites like Electoral-vote.com. This race seems like it'll be one for the ages. I plan to vote for Barack Obama in spite of his recent move toward the center. I like most of his ideas (and those of the Democratic Party in general). I feel kind of bad about perpetuating the two-party system, but if I didn't like the Democrats' plans for the country, I wouldn't be one. I am compassionate, and I value freedom. I just wish the Dems in Congress weren't a bunch of spineless wimps who turn to Jell-O when a Republican breathes on them. Hopefully Obama can provide a positive example for them when he's President.

Things that aren't cool about turning 18: (1) the specter of forced military service (dudes only), and (2) aging. Oh yes. It is at the age of 18 that I have begun to become aware of my own mortality. Last summer, I had an eye exam. My vision used to be above average, but now it's only average. Oh, I know, what a big tragedy. But nothing like this had ever happened to me, so you can bet I was a little concerned. And then, of course, I listened to music through my headphones too much, and now my ears have a vague aching that won't go away. When I was recording stuff with my friend Nick the other day, it was the first time I had used headphones since I realized I should stop. My ears hurt more after that, but now they're back to "normal." Senses, as they say, fail.

Although the thought that I'll never be 18 again has struck me somewhat (unlike in past years), I am still pretty young. Most of my biography has yet to be written. I feel like this the year when I'll start to have crazy times in college (which is not to say that my first year wasn't fun). I'd better start hanging out with high school girls before it gets too creepy and illegal.

We all have our quirks. i am neurotic. is a site collects them for all to see.

This wouldn't be a blog if I didn't link to a Japanese YouTube video of a cat playing with a theremin. You're welcome.

Bacteria are handy little critters. Since they're so abundant and they reproduce so quickly, scientists have been able to observe a major evolutionary shift after tens of thousands of generations of a certain strain. The change was testable because the scientists had saved some samples every 500 generations, allowing them to "replay" the evolution or to see if it could occur under different conditions. Scienterrific!

It's birthday season. I know a lot of people whose birthdays are this month. Besides me, there are some of my best friends, some of my pretty okay friends, and also some friends of friends who were born in July. This is a story of one of the latter... or, rather, the last.

Well, okay. I have a friend named Jarian whose has a girlfriend with the similar-sounding name Gerri. She's come into Jarian's and my greater social circle to an admirable degree. (I guess if one wants to be someone's lover, one really does got to get with that person's friends.) Her birthday is in July, and so is mine. Her party was at the same time that I planned to have birthday-related plans. I didn't mean to steal guests away from her luau-themed pool party, but it's Saturday, and my birthday's on Sunday, so it's also convenient for me. Needless to say, I wouldn't be able to go to her birthday-related festivities... or so I thought.

She said that her actual birthday was the upcoming Tuesday (two days ago) and that she would be celebrating by going to Bonefish Mac's with some people on that night. She invited me to that, and I was all, okay, that's cool. So I went, and it was pretty cool. My friend Nick was there also, probably so he'd be able to go to my party. After dinner, we went to the beach, which is basically the default thing to do if you have a bunch of young types who don't know what to do at night. Unfortunately, the beach is fiercely windy at night, but we still had fun playing ball for a while.

Gerri turned 16, meaning that she was, like, 15 and three quarters when I met her. That's kind of weird. I mean, I wasn't 16 very long ago, but there's kind of a big difference between being 15 and being 18. I wouldn't have guessed that she was so young, so I guess I'd say that she acts a little older than she is. Or maybe I act younger than I am?

Yesterday, Nick came to my house, and we did something we hadn't done in a long time. We jammed. Back in the day, we would play right into my tape recorder, but now I have digital multitrack technology, so we can overlay layers of sound. Oh, it is big fun, and I'm rather pleased with the results. We recorded all Beatles songs: "Please Please Me," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "With a Little Help from My Friends," and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away." I can't wait for Nick to hear the mixes.

Right after that, Nick and I went to Mike's house and hung out for a while. We canoed in the canal, played video games, shot some hoops, and did other stuff to pass the time until the evening rolled around. I think the original plan was to go to a huge mall, but we got some other people together and went to Chili's instead. And then there was the after-dinner outside-the-restaurant chatting, which is always good for some laffs. I had a good time.

Here are (according to someone) the 15 Funniest Police Blotters. They all look pretty real.

In the US presidential election of 2000, it became clear that the winner of the popular vote might not win the presidency due to that thing called the electoral college, which does the actual voting for president. Each state has a certain number of electoral votes based on its population, and the candidate who gets 270 votes is the winner. I've long assumed that each state had to assign its votes in a winner-take-all fashion, but that's not necessarily the case. Each state can decide how it assigns its electoral votes. It turns out that this may be the key to abolishing the electoral college, an idea that a majority of Americans have favored for at least 60 years. Rather than changing the constitution (a notoriously difficult process), it's just a matter of convincing enough states to assign their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been submitted in almost every state legislature, and four states have already approved it. If states with a total of 270 electoral votes approve the agreement, it will go into force among them, ensuring that America's voters directly choose the president.

And finally, here are (according to someone) 8 of the World's Most Unusual Postage Stamps. They are pretty unusual.

People all the time be asking me: "Why can't I get iTunes to work? Can you fix it?" Answer: No, I can't. I've never used iTunes, and I don't know how it works. What's that? It ate half of your songs? Well, don't look at me. I can guess and guess, but you should try to know (to the extent possible) how your own software works. If something comes up, hone your Google-fu and search for an explanation.

I recognize that many popular programs such as iTunes are not free software, so their technical documentation is necessarily limited. That leads to the conclusion that you should use free software instead. When a program is released as free software, all of its inner workings are made available to you. The developers typically keep a database of bugs for users and developers to view, add to, discuss, and fix.

Anyway, if you're not happy with iTunes, ask yourself why you're using it. I'd venture to guess that all of the features that Apple's iTunes has other programs have as well. Me, I use Rhythmbox. It's a GNOME program, so you need to be using GNOME to run it. (If you're not sure, then you're not.) For the other 98% of you, try going to Wikipedia's comparison of media players to see which audio player is right for you. And if you have a recommendation, post a comment.

When my friend Luke came over last week, he brought two DVDs for me to borrow. One was 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I watched the next day. The other was Apocalypse Now Redux, which I watched today. It went on a little too long (over three hours); I was able to guess which sequences were cut out of the original version. That didn't stop me from enjoying the movie, though. Nothing like a good war film to remind you why war is terrible. Plus, it left me thinking at the end, which I suppose a good movie is supposed to do.

Recently I wrote about an unfortunate incident at a peaceful protest in Eugene, Oregon. One man was tasered and two others were arrested. The Register-Guard now reports that a government agent was spying on the rally and ordered local police to interfere. The silver lining, if any, is that the city will review allegations of misconduct on the part of the police officers, but that's not to say that such behavior by federal authorities or local police departments is acceptable.

Sometimes we forget about Africa, the continent in which poverty, malnutrition, and disease are relatively rampant. Here's a map to put the size of Africa into perspective. It's larger than China, the contiguous United States, India, Western Europe, and Argentina combined.

Here's a '50s educational film: Crimes of Carelessness.

For the Fourth of July, I went to my friend Nick's house for a barbecue. His whole family was there, as usual. And it was pretty crazy, as usual. There are a lot of kids in that family.

First, Nick and his cousin were playing Rock Band. I don't understand the appeal of it. If I could play a game that would actually improve my guitar skills for real, that would be awesome. More people (and kids) arrived, so we went out to the cul-de-sac to play ball. Some of the kids started shooting bottle rockets, but it wasn't dark yet. After the food was served, there was some more video gaming inside. It was raining, so Nick and I played some songs on the guitar, and everyone sang along. As the rain let up, we went outside to shoot a bunch of fireworks. Then, it was getting late, and people started to leave. I had a fun time.

I've been trying to synthesize everything people have been telling me about basic communication and relationship skills that everyone is supposed to have. Hopefully this is the last I'll have to say about this for a while.

As previously stated, I am cool. I just have a hard time showing people how funny, insightful, and suave I am. The other problem is that (as Casey said), by indiscriminately asking girls on dates, I am creeping them out. I even began to notice this myself with the last one. I need to be more attuned to whether they like me and not rush to date them. So that leaves a few simple steps:

1. Show her how great I am. (Actually contribute to a conversation, including talking to her. Be outgoing.)
2. Recognize when she believes it. (Watch for subtle verbal cues, body language, and/or unsolicited sexual acts.)
3. Ask her to "hang out." (Not a "date" because those are scary.)

I feel good about breaking this process into simple steps. Am I on the right track, normal people?

Wal-Mart is now Walmart. They have a new logo to boot. It makes me forget that they're a horrible company!

Mouse Print is a blog that examines the "fine print" in ads and packaging to catch businesses in the act of deceiving potential customers.

Finally, check out some cool prehistoric cave paintings.